Finding Rick Riordan
by CrayolaMarkers
Summary: Finally, Percy gets to go on that "not-date" to the movies with Annabeth. Then a new trailer starts to play: The Lightning Thief. Their harmless trip to the movies turns into a quest to find and interrogate the one man who knows so much about their lives.
1. FADE IN: The Not Date and the Trailer

**A/N: This is the unfortunate product of three things. **

**One, I was studying for exams and had to find SOME way to take a break. Two, I've always wanted to do one of those fics like, "What if Percy and Annabeth DID go on that date in **_**BotL?**_** Here's what would happen!" Three, I've been obsessing over the Lightning Thief movie trailers.**

**So this fic went horribly, horribly wrong. Read if you must.**

**It's from Annabeth's perspective, as always. Set in the summer before freshman year (beginning chapter of **_**The Battle of the Labyrinth**_**). Let's assume that it was really, really rainy during Percy's freshman orientation; the empousai (cheerleaders Tammi and Kelli) didn't want to get their hair wet, so they didn't go to the orientation at all. Thus, Percy succeeded in avoiding Rachel, and he actually got to go to the movie with Annabeth.**

**Last note: let's pretend this is happening around the present, maybe June 2009, if we pretend they'd released the movie trailer by then. **

**You'll see why later.**

**AND THIS AUTHOR'S NOTE IS FINALLY FREAKIN' OVER!**

**

* * *

  
**

He was earlier than I was.

Ha, got you there. You were _expecting _me to say, "he was late," weren't you? Because this is Percy we're talking about? And because he's an idiotic slacker, like, 60% of the time?

But no, _I _was late, by like five minutes, and Percy was leaning against the ticket counter, playing with the two tickets in his hands and looking at his dirt-speckled sneakers like they were the most fascinating thing in the world.

"_Percy," _I gasped, slowing to a jog as I ran up to him.

His head jerked up, and he bit back a smile. "You're--"

"Late," I said, still panting. "Yeah. I know. I only ran the last two miles to get here."

"Why?"

"The bus broke," I said lamely. It was true, too, even though Percy gave me the most sarcastic, disbelieving look in the world. "It did!" I insisted.

"Sure," Percy rolled his eyes and handed me a ticket.

I stared at the shiny white paper in my hands. "It _did _break down," I said. "Engine problems. And shouldn't I pay for this?"

Percy's eyes twinkled like huge emeralds under a flashlight as he grinned. "They don't accept drachmas, dummy."

"I've got real money," I scowled at him, then dug through my jean pockets. 3 golden drachmas the size of the York peppermint patties at the concessions stand, a wrapped piece of cinnamon gum, and some lint fuzz. Impressive.

"They don't accept gum as payment, either," Percy reminded me.

"Oh, shut up," I muttered.

I'd promised him a long time ago (last Christmas, in fact, when we'd just finished saving the world from Atlas and gotten the gray streaks in our hair to prove it) that we wouldn't have anymore of this not-seeing-each-other-except-when-we're-on-quests crap. We'd hang out, both of us promised. We'd even go see _The Princess and the Frog_ one day. He may have a skull full of seaweed, but he's still my friend, and I'd much rather be _with_ him and rolling my eyes than _without_ him and lonely.

At least, that's what I thought when I was at school for the past five months. Now, I wasn't so sure.

Percy practically dragged me to the concessions stand once I'd quit insisting that I should pay. "So, time for the real question: sour straws, or sour skittles?"

"I thought we were late for the movie!" I cried.

"_You_ were late for the movie," he corrected me. "I was right on time. And I'm getting sour straws."

"You're disgusting," I noted as he pulled even more money from his pockets. "Sour straws are gross. And how are you so rich all of a sudden?"

"Paul," explained Percy without a snippit of shame. "He slips me money sometimes when he visits me and my mom."

"Who's Paul?"

Percy sighed. "We've got a lot of catching up to do, huh?"

"What else is new?" I muttered, heading toward theater six where _The_ _Princess and the Frog_ was supposedly playing.

If you've ever been in a big-city movie theater in the states, this one was no different. Huge: check. Too dark to see where your feet are going: check. Mysterious sticky substance on the floor that _could_ be Diet Coke but could also be something vaguely disgusting: check. And, thanks to me, we had the glorious choices of very very front row or very very back row to pick from. I wanted front. Percy, who paid for both of us, wanted back. Guess who won?

"Don't blame me when you can't see anything," I said as we squee-geed ourselves into two of the last available seats in the back row.

He didn't respond, just looked at me and half-smiled. I think. I couldn't really tell in the dark.

"_What_?" I asked.

"Nothing, nothing," he whispered, flopping into the velour chair. "You just look sorta pretty, that's all."

I crossed my arms. I most certainly did _not_ look sorta pretty. I didn't even look presentable. I'd waited for ten minutes at the bus stop once Argus had given me a ride, changed from my soaked Camp Half-Blood t-shirt into the only other shirt I had at the time, a red v-neck cotton thing, and _then _ran all the way to the movies. In the rain. And got my shirt soaked again. And lost my ponytail holder somewhere along the way.

Was I dripping wet, with messy hair worn down and a red shirt that, though _mercifully_ not see-through, was hardly stylish? Yes. Was I even borderline pretty? No.

"It's the dim lighting, Seaweed Brain," I told him, taking the neighboring seat.

There was a "Cinema Firstlook" thing that came before the previews (yes, previews--I _so_ did not make us late). Since neither of us cared, and everybody else was talking, we spent the next ten minutes rehashing what had happened in the last six months of each of our lives.

Some of our questions were the same: _how bad did you fail English? What are people like at your school? Did you meet any half-bloods? Were you attacked by big monsters, or only the little kind?_

Then, of course, I asked mine, like, _who the heck is Paul? _And then, when he told me who Paul was, _Oh! So your mom's getting married?_

To which he responded that he had no idea.

Percy had some questions of his own, mainly, _So what's your family been doing? How come you told us they sucked if they're really nice? _(I never said they sucked. When did I say that?!) _Any news about Luke after he, uh, you know...fell? _and _Did you get a boyfriend or something?_

"WHAT?!" I whispered as loudly as possible in a crowded theater. "Boyf--no, no, obviously no. Where the hell did you hear that?"

"I didn't _hear_ it," Percy said sheepishy. "I just guessed."

"All right, I'll rephrase my question," I said. "What the hell made you guess that?"

"I don't know," he retorted. "Maybe a guy got lured in by 'dim lighting'."

I rolled my eyes and raised the armrest from between our chairs. "I'm not trying to be awkward or anything," I told him quickly, now that our unseparated chairs resembled a couch . "The armrest just...bugs me."

Percy frowned. "See, if you do stuff like this all the time to guys, it's called _leading them on_."

I blushed furiously. "Why don't you just eat those disgusting sour straws," I snapped.

The first preview came on, something with a guy holding his breath in a pool, and everybody hushed at once. There was something intrinsically familiar about the guy on the screen, though, and I turned to poke Percy.

"Hey," I whispered. "That guy looks like you."

Percy, who had a sparkly blue sour straw in his mouth, glanced up at the screen. "Mffmfmfmfmfphff," he tried to say.

I gave him an exasperated look.

He bit off the end of the straw. "You think my nose is that skinny?"

But I didn't want to interrupt the trailer, which actually had lines now: _How long was that_? the Percy look-alike said, surfacing and swimming to the side of the pool.

_Seven minutes_, his friend with black skin and a leather jacket said.

"I can hold my breath longer underwater," Percy murmured.

"You can _breathe_ underwater," I said. "Shh!"

_There are twelve Olympian gods,_ a voice said on-screen. Oh, wait, it was Pierce Brosnan. Sweet! _The Big Three are the brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades_.

"Oh my gods," I said. "We have to see this movie."

"No kidding!" Percy cried, grinning at me. "My dad's in it!"

I was about to tell him to shut up, or people would think he meant Pierce Brosnan, but the voice continued: _The children of these gods...were half-human, half-gods_.

Me and Percy shot each other looks.

"Hang on," Percy and I said at the same time.

"Why is it set at a school if they're talking about demigods?" I asked uneasily. "All the ones mortals know about are back during the Classical period."

"Maybe it's a _Hercules_ re-make," Percy suggested. "They do a lot of stuff like that, where they put an old story in a modern..." he trailed off and looked back at the screen, since we'd missed the past twenty or so seconds because we were talking. _Ms. Dodds? _the Percy look-alike asked an elderly teacher in the trailer.

Percy's eyes grew huge. "That was my teacher's name!" he whispered urgently. "The one at my old school, who turned into a..."

_WHOOSH!_

The elderly lady, perched on scaffolding, sprouted three pairs of ugly-ass wings and formed a hideous, sharp-toothed mouth. And the resulting monster looked just as familiar as the Percy look-alike.

"Kindly one?" I asked him cautiously. "Just guessing, were you about to say 'kindly one'?"

He didn't answer--_couldn't_ answer. His eyes were glued to the screen.

_They found him, _said Pierce Brosnan.

The look-alike looked as scared as Percy did right now. _Who found me?_

It only got worse from there. _The gods are real_, the friend with the leather jacket said, before it cut to the look-alike saying_, My father's Poseidon_, like he was startled. Percy, on the other hand, looked like he was about to throw up.

Then, they showed a legitimate shot of Olympus at nighttime. Embarrassed to say it, but I jumped out of my seat, hitting the end of my spine on the sticky floor.

"Ouch," I muttered, zooming back into the seat so I could keep watching. But still--how on earth were they getting footage of OLYMPUS?!

_Zeus' bolt is the most powerful weapon ever created_, some actor who was evil guy from _National Treasure_ said in the trailer. _It's been stolen_.

Pierce Brosnan continued, _If it's not returned by the summer solstice, there will be war_.

"Percy!" I cried. "Percy, are you getting any of this?!"

He was still shell-shocked.

"_It's what happened in sixth grade_," I said, shaking him. "This is totally, exactly, absolutely the quest we took back when we were, like, twelve, and--hey, is that supposed to be me?"

There was a shot of three kids--the Percy look-alike, a pretty girl, and his leather-jacket friend, who, apparently, had horns now. A satyr. No, the actress couldn't possibly be _me_, could she? She was like a teenage Jennifer Garner.

"Because the boy's obviously you," I tried to explain. "Which means the satyr's Grover..."

Percy nodded a fraction of an inch.

I frowned. "But my hair's different."

"How can you think of _hair_ right now?" Percy finally said, incredulous, breaking his spell of silence.

"Thank gods, I thought you were going mute," I muttered.

_I definitely have strong feelings for you,_ the pretty girl said to the Percy look-alike, kicking Percy's ass in a fight before they showed her leaning in to kiss him. _I just haven't decided if they're positive or negative yet_.

"I _never said that!_" I hissed at the screen, blushing even more; thank the gods the two didn't actually kiss on screen. And yeah, by now, more than a couple people were staring at us. "Okay, Seaweed Brain, this is obviously not about either of us, because if it is, they're certainly taking creative liberties with---"

_We'll find the bolt_, the look-alike said to the pretty girl onscreen, cutting me off.

"Well," Percy told me, his voice shaking. "I actually did say that."

The trailer kept rolling--more scenes of the look-alike, the look-alike and pretty girl with their hair blowing dramatically in the wind, a scene with the look-alike saying, _This is a pen_. Twice.

"All right, I never said anything that stupid," Percy scowled.

"Riptide," I said weakly, glancing at the pen tucked in Percy's jeans pocket.

All the color drained out of Percy's face, especially as he watched the pen turn into a bronzey sword onscreen. WHILE THE LOOK-ALIKE WAS FIGHTING A MINOTAUR.

"Oh," was all Percy managed to say.

_Maybe you're no son of Poseidon, _a handsome blond guy said in the trailer.

"Luke," Percy and I said in hushed unison. The guy was a 99% Luke-looking match.

And then, hundreds of thousands of gallons of water swirled around the Percy actor, rising and gathering exactly like the water always did when Percy decided to quit being useless and help defeat monsters.

And then the worst part of the whole trailer--the ending voiceover.

_Percy Jackson and the Olympians_, the voice said, sending an awful chill down my spinal cord as the golden logo flashed before us. _The Lightning Thief._


	2. CUT TO: Research and IM'ing Chiron

**A/N: Oh my gosh. I post the last chapter when I'm sick, go to bed, and wake up with thirty-plus reviews for one chapter. Have I mentioned how much I love you guys?**

**Well, here goes: I love you guys! love love love love love. Also, merry Christmas!**

**

* * *

  
**

So after that, both of us giggled and remarked how similar the movie was to our lives, then calmly settled in to watch two hours of _The Princess and the Frog_.

No, dummy.

We left the theater, of course.

"WAHHHHHHHH!" both of us screamed the second we were outside. Nobody was around to stare, and we began to hyperventilate like crazy people, trying to figure out what just happened.

"You think it's a stalker?" Percy suggested. "Maybe there's a stalker documenting all our quests."

"What, like Hephaestus with his cameras or something?" I said. "How d'you think they got that scene with Olympus?"

Percy frowned. "They had a scene of Olympus?"

"Yes..." I said slowly. "Didn't you notice all the huge Greek buildings with lightning flashing behind them?"

"I must've been preoccupied with the fact that my life was getting turned into a movie," he said.

I took a deep breath through my mouth. "On the plus side," I noted, trying lamely to make a joke. "Your actor was pretty attractive."

"No, he wasn't," Percy grumbled. "He looked exactly like me, with a skinny nose."

I refrained from telling him that his nose really was that skinny, and instead thought about this some more. "A plan," I decided, beginning to pace. "We can't just go back to camp if somebody's following us. They'd know everything we were planning. Nothing could be kept secret."

"We can't just stick around in Manhattan forever," Percy reminded me.

"I know that!" I snapped, turning back to him. "The library."

"Um, no offense, but is this exactly the right time to be chilling out and trying to read books in English?"

"Not for the _books_," I said. "For the computers. We're going to do a little research."

Percy obviously wasn't psyched about the research part, but he wanted to know who was making a freaking _movie_ about him just as much--if not more--than I did. We got a taxi with the rest of the oodles of Paul's money he had in his pocket and headed for the New York Public Library.

"Computers!" Percy said triumphantly, dashing to some in a row across the wall. "For research!"

Well, yeah, we'd found the computers. Unfortunately, every single one of them was taken.

"Terrific," I said by the door. "That was stupid of me. Everybody comes here in June to type their final synthesis papers, anyway. Of course they're all being used."

"Leave it to me," Percy muttered, strolling toward the computers and pasting a confused look on his face.

"You guys are still here?" he asked the older teenagers, sounding incredulous.

One of them, a blond guy who looked like a junior, gave him a superior look. "Yeah. Whaddya mean, _still_?"

"Nothing," Percy shrugged. "I just figured everybody'd be outside, considering all the free Red Bull they're giving out."

"_What_?" everybody between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five asked, dropping what they were doing and rushing out the doors.

The blond junior's eyes flicked toward the doors, then back to his work. "Don't take my spot," he ordered menacingly, sprinting outside.

A few moments passed in silence before the librarian turned to us and winked. "Nicely done," she whispered before disappearing behind rows of books.

I smiled. "All right, all right. Good job, Seaweed Brain. How about we take the one that was on addicting-games-dot-com, not the one writing the term paper?"

Thus our search began.

_Percy Jackson movie_ yielded a ton of results when Percy googled it, but the first one was just the trailer we'd already seen. And instead of doing something useful, Percy ended up on its IMDb page, clicking on all the actors' names.

"I have an actor," he said incredulously. "Logan Lerman is playing Percy Jackson. How cool is that?!"

"Thrilling," I said, taking my own computer and scrutinizing the movie's Wikipedia page. "Ha! Breakthrough!"

Percy didn't glance up from his actor's page. "What?"

"It's based on a series of books," I said. This was getting stranger every second. "Adventure-slash-fantasy. First one in the series is _The Lightning Thief_."

"Like the movie," he said, still scrolling through pages. "Did you know Logan Lerman was in the _Hoot _movie? We had to read that book in seventh grade."

"What the heck is _Hoot_?" I began to ask, then stopped. There was no point in encouraging him. "Second one's _The Sea of Monsters_--holy Hera, like when we were thirteen. There's literally a book for every year of our--"

"You're played by 'Alexandra Daddario'," he said. "What do you mean she doesn't look like you? She's practically your twin, except for the whole hair thing. Well, maybe not exactly as tan, either."

"Percy," I asked, exasperated, "Are you listening to anything I tell you?"

"Yeah, Sea of Monsters and blah blah blah."

I was about to give him an icy glare, when somehthing on the page in front of me stopped me cold. Book four: _The Battle of the Labyrinth. _

This couldn't be true. The last time either of us had done something interesting, whoever was stalking us had written about it in the last book, _The Titan's Curse_, according to Wikipedia.

So how could they know about the Labyrinth? It was a secret, even among campers. Nobody except me, Mr. D, and Chiron knew.

I scrolled down to read about it, but the page turned blank.

Cursing in ancient Greek, I refreshed the page and scrolled down. Nothing. Nada.

"Hey, Annabeth, are you looking at Wikipedia too?" Percy's voice said, drifting in the back of my head as I refreshed, refreshed, refreshed. "You know you have your own page? It says _Fictional Biography_, funny, huh? They even know your fatal flaw. Creepy."

Refresh, refresh, refresh. Shoot! Why wouldn't that stupid section about the Labyrinth show? It's hard enough for a dyslexic to read these pages as it is!

"Uh-oh...there's a whole_ section_ about romance. See, 'a key supplebot--sorry, _subplot_ in the series is the relationship between Annabeth, Percy, and Luke. Annabeth likes Percy, but she still has...wait a second...ling-er-ing feelings for Luke...' Whoa, is that true? Come _on_, I know you can hear me."

Yes, Percy, I can hear you. And I really wish you'd shut up so I could figure out what these people know about the Labyrinth.

"Aw, man, part of the page just went blank. Whatever. Waitwaitwait_wait_, listen to this! Author Rick Riordan says, 'Annabeth is Percy's r...rational side, she can think through things and--'"

"WAIT!" I cried when I heard the word _author_, grabbing his hand so he wouldn't click away. "What'd you just say? Where is that?"

"At the top. You're apparently my rational side."

"I already knew that part," I said. "What'd you say before?"

"You like me but have lingering feelings for Luke?"

I ignored that one completely, still reading the page. "'Author Rick Riordan'. You did it, Seaweed Brain! You found the guy in charge of everything!"

"Like that's going to help us?" he snorted, minimizing the window and turning to face me, his face skeptical. "What do you want to do, Wise Girl--go talk to him or something? One, if his books are getting turned into movies, it's probably going to be hard to get someone famous like him to talk to us. And _two_, even if we_ could_ get him to talk to us...what's the point?"

I gulped. "Ah, Percy...you know, he wrote five books."

He shrugged. "All right. So?"

"One for our quest to get Zeus' Master Bolt. One for, well, _Clarisse's_ quest to the Sea of Monsters. One for last winter, when you went with Thalia and Zoe and Grover to find Artemis and me."

"What are the other two?" he asked uneasily.

"The page blanks out," I said in frustration. I took control of his computer for a second and showed him. "But if this Riordan guy can see the future or something...we seriously need to know."

When I said "see the future," he burst out laughing, so I obviously had to give him a slap upside the head.

"Let's go, Seaweed Brain."

"One minute," he said, his eyes still glued to the screen. "I just gotta check out _Percy Jackson and the Olympians _fanfiction...what do you think that is?"

"Come _on_."

We scrambled out of the library (didn't want to get assaulted by angry, Red Bull-deprived high schoolers) and zipped around the building to the yard behind it, mostly because the back of the library had a water fountain. Its spurting, weak-pressured mist of water was awful for drinking...but perfect for an Iris message. Rainbows filtered through it left and right.

"Drachmas _do _come in handy," I told Percy, who looked suspiciously like he'd just been rolling his eyes. I glared at him and jammed down the water fountain's button with a large rock, tossing in a gold coin. "Anyway..._O goddess, accept our offering_."

The coin dissolved into gold sparkles, and I looked at Percy for confirmation. "Half-Blood Hill?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yeah. Let's talk to Chiron."

The ever-sunny fields of camp swirled into focus in front of us, with a anxious-looking centaur in the foreground. Chiron was on the Big House's porch, buttoning up his tweed jacket, until he saw the two of us sizzle into view.

"Annabeth?" he asked, his face a mix of confusion and worry. "What's wrong? I thought you were going into town on that date with Percy today."

"It _wasn't a date_," the two of us said loudly.

"Why, hello, Percy!" Chiron said, smiling a bit more broadly. "Good to know you're still safe."

"Still safe?" he asked. "Why wouldn't I be safe?"

Chiron and I exchanged looks. But we didn't have time to discuss the Labyrinth right now.

"Never mind that," I said quickly. "Chiron, we have a really strange reason for contacting you..."

"Ever heard of Rick Riordan?" Percy interrupted.

Chiron frowned. "Don't think so. But he sounds vaguely familiar."

"Probably because he wrote _a five-book series _about our lives," I said. "Well, Percy's life, really. And now it's being turned into a movie and we think he can see the future and--"

"Child, slow down!" he stopped me. "Start at the beginning. You say he wrote a _book_?!"

So then we had to tell him everything. And even as it was coming out of our mouths, it sounded so, _so_ weird. _So, yeah, Chiron, somehow, the details of Percy's adventures here have somehow been PUBLISHED. And sold. And read by lots of kids. And been made into a full-length feature film by the same guy who did two of the Harry Potter movies._

"So that's what we know so far...Chiron?" Percy snapped his fingers in front of the spraying water where Chiron's face was. "_Chiron_! Can you hear us?"

"I can hear you," he finally said in awe. "How on earth did Dick Rye-ordan find out so much about us? This is a catastrophe!"

"Rick," I corrected, remembering what I learned from the author's website. "Rick _Riordan_. Rire-dan. Rhymes with fire?"

Percy continued, "The worst part is, Annabeth and I...we think he can somehow see what hasn't...um...happened yet."

Chiron frowned. "And why would you think that?"

"He's written a book called _The Battle of the Labyrinth_," I said in a whisper.

"_What?!_"

"And _The Last Olympian_," I added. "But I don't really understand that one."

"Would somebody please tell me what's so special about the labyrinth book?" Percy cried.

Chiron sighed. "As much as I want to tell you now, Percy, I think you'll have to come back to camp first."

"We can't just go back to camp," I said. "What about the books? The movie? The future-seeing author?"

"Annabeth, _you _aren't going back to camp. You can take a plane to pay a visit to Mr. Rye-ordan, wherever he is, without getting blasted to your death by the Lord of the Sky. Percy, on the other hand, is staying with us."

"Am not," he said immediately.

"You are indeed, Percy. I've already arranged travel for you back to camp. Even before you contacted me, I'd been pondering where the safest place for you would be. It's Camp Half-Blood. Your travel arrangements should be arriving..." he scratched his fluffy beard. "Well, any minute now."

Percy, who'd been looking thoroughly disgruntled, turned curious. "Um, I don't have any money left for a taxi. What do you mean by...travel arrangements?"

Suddenly, a warm gust of wind, carrying various library-related debris, blew against our backs. Both of us looked up at the same time to see what at first looked like a huge, black blob with wings directly above our heads. But with a second glance, it turned out to be a black pegasus, carrying a skinny girl with a black bob and silvery jacket on his back.

And yes, unfortunately, it was very easy to tell that this pegasus was a _he_. I sincerely hoped it was the last time I'd have to see a horse-like creature from that particular angle.

"Hey Annabeth, Seaweed Brain," Thalia Grace, new member of Artemis' hunting clan, said with a smile. She hopped off the pegasus easily. "Right on cue, huh? I'd be lying if I said I didn't_ sort of _plan to come in like that."

"Thalia!" I rushed over to give her a hug, considering I hadn't seen her in months, ever since she became a Hunter. It had given her this tangible, confident glow. And I had to say, it kind of suited her.

Percy, however, wasn't making much of an effort to be nice. I mean, I knew that he and Thalia weren't the best of friends or anything, but he was totally focused on greeting the very-male black pegasus.

I raised an eyebrow. "Uh, Percy? Want to say hi to Thalia?"

"Hi, Thalia," he said distractedly, patting the pegasus on the back. "Hey, Annabeth, remember Blackjack?"

"Uh..." I blinked. "Oh yeah! You rode him back from that battle last winter."

Blackjack neighed happily and trotted over to nuzzle me. I patted his head and grinned. "What's he saying?"

Percy, who had this freaky connection with horses' minds, rolled his eyes. "You don't want to know."

"So we're supposed to take you guys back to camp," Thalia said, glancing at Chiron. "Um, right?"

"Just Percy," Chiron told her. "Annabeth's going on a mission to...where'd you say Mr. Rye-ordan lived?"

"San Antonio."

Thalia frowned. "Hold on a second. If Annabeth's going on a mission, I want to come."

"No _way_," Percy said, stepping up to the Iris message again. "If I can't go just because Zeus is too wacko to let me fly in a plane, there's _still_ no way I'm gonna let Pinecone Face have all the fun."

On the word _wacko_, lightning flashed in the otherwise sunny sky, followed by a rumbling of thunder so loud it made my jaw rattle.

"Nice going, fish face," Thalia hissed.

"No buts," Chiron ordered. "I'll use our strawberry profits to pay for your tickets to Texas. Percy's coming back to camp whether he wants to or not."

"THE MOVIE IS CALLED _PERCY JACKSON _AND THE OLYMPIANS!" Percy shouted to the Iris Message. "NOT _ANNABETH AND THALIA AND THE OLYMPIANS!"_

_"_Tough," I said, dragging him over to Blackjack. "See ya, Chiron. We'll stop by the airport first, then fly Seaweed Brain back to you."

We turned off the water fountain and were in the air moments later.

"Just so you know, Blackjack agrees with me," Percy informed us.

"Yeah, yeah," Thalia said. "What's this about a movie?"

Percy and I sighed. "Trust me, Thalia," he said. "Maybe it's best you don't know."


	3. DISSOLVE TO: Reading and CelebSpotting

**A/N: I'm so selfish! I got the best Christmas presents ever on this wonderful, glorious day: a guitar, an iPod touch, a cashmere scarf, and **_**The Other Boleyn Girl **_**on DVD. But frankly, I'm a sucky gift-**_**giver**_**. SO HERE IS MY PRESENT TO ALL OF YOUUUUU!**

**Again, a sucky gift. It's just a chapter. But it was so fun to write. Super-special Christmas hugs to reviewers with those blissfully long reviews, like ****Thai**** (THAI! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?), ****everyoneisMISunderstood****, ****ktlnn****, ****Avenger of the Olympian Flame****, ****Percabeth777, Clara Fonteyn, Dancing-StarryEyedDemigod,**** and ****ibelieveinthegods**** ;)**

**ibelieveinthegods made a good point, which is: watch out, or you will get reported by Aish Sheva because you're not allowed to have real people in your stories. So I sent a telepathic thank you to her and re-read the guidelines, like, twice. Maybe I'm blind, but I saw ZIPPO in there about real people, so hopefully this story won't die! (Also, Sheva...we're buds, aren't we?? AREN'T WE?!?)**

**Merry Christmas everyone! I'll quit yapping. Long juicy chapter ahead.**

**

* * *

  
**

You'd think Chiron, being a centuries-old centaur with not a whole lot of knowledge about computers, wouldn't manage to get our plane tickets over the internet. But they were waiting for us at the airport's computers, with the gate number and everything. I was half-impressed and half-guilty. Thinking of all the strawberries it must have taken to get money for the plane made me feel bad.

"Don't be like that," Thalia insisted, swiping my bag of pretzels once we were on the plane.

I'd explained the whole movie and book deal to her, despite what Percy said. She was weirdly calm about everything. Like, when I told her that somebody had published the past three years of our lives as fiction, she just said, "huh," like I'd told her it was going to hail tomorrow in New Zealand or something.

"It's not your fault Percy got himself into trouble again," she continued, muching away on pretzels. "He should be the one feeling guilty about paying for this."

"Um, except it _isn't_ his fault. And I can't believe you're so cavalier about this."

"Cavalier?"

"Indifferent. You're probably in the books too, you know!"

"I know. I just don't care," she shrugged. "Mortal affairs don't mean much. I guess it's just something that comes with being immortal."

I frowned. "Don't act so high-and-mighty. You've only been _immortal_ for what, five months?"

"Six!" she cried, her mouth full. "Insult me again and I won't give you your present."

Of course, when she said _that_, I apologized about a billion times. I mean, it's not like Thalia's the teenage version of Santa Claus. Getting presents from her would be a first.

Eventually she sighed, told me to stop apologizing because it made me look stupid, and started digging through her Hunter's pack for whatever present she got me.

A blond flight attendant was traipsing down the aisle with a garbage bag. "Trash?" she asked sweetly, smiling to reveal glossy white (and kind of pointy) teeth.

"Yeah, thanks." I leaned over to toss in Thalia's--I mean _my_--empty pretzel bag. Except when I leaned over...I saw a boy my age, slouching in the seat in front of me, reading a paperback book. Green cover. With a picture of a kid holding a sword.

"Whoa," I said, snaking my shoulders around so I could see him better. "What's that you're reading?"

The boy lifted his shaggy brown head to look at me. "Um...it's called _The Lightning Thief_," he said sheepishly, giving an embarrassed smile. "I know it's a kid book, but it's my favorite. I've read it a billion times. You heard of it?"

I shook my head emphatically, trying to read over his shoulder. It didn't help. With the small print and my dyslexia, the words looked like a bunch of black peppercorns scattered across blank pages.

But seriously. Either this book was getting to be pretty popular, or I was the luckiest demigod-who'd-ever-been-in-a-book-series. What are the odds I'd find it on a _plane?!_

"What's it about?" I asked experimentally, nearly hopping in my seat like a Mexican jumping bean.

"Uh...it's sorta cool...there's this kid who finds out he's the son of Poseidon, and he goes on this quest..."

I was still blinking at the book cover. "Wow, sweet, you mean like the Greek god?"

"Yeah. You like Greek mythology?" he asked hopefully.

"Love it," I said, trying not to be sarcastic as my hands drifted toward the _Lightning Thief's_ cover. "The book....can I.._.touch it?_"

"You can read it," he said affably, plunking the chunky little book in my outstretched hands.

I thanked him a zillion times before spreading the well-worn pages out to the first chapter on my tray table. _One, _it said, which was easy enough to read. _I Accdtallinly Vpaorzie My Pre-Aglebar Tchaer._

Terrific. Rick Riordan couldn't have used shorter words?

"Dude, do you want your present or not?" Thalia asked beside me, clearly irritated. I'd almost forgotten she was there.

I closed the book quickly. "Yes please."

She pulled what looked like a shiny makeup compact from behind her back, the kind Aphrodite's kids carried around with them from dawn till dusk. It was neon orange, square, and just a little-little-_little_ bit tacky.

"Gee," I took the makeup compact and smiled. "Thanks. Wish I actually used makeup."

"It's not for your face, _Wise Girl_, it's for contacting people." Thalia snatched the compact back up and opened it to its mirrored inside. "Say the name of the person you want to talk to, and if they have one of these, you can talk to them."

Wow. Well, that was actually kind of awesome.

"And who else has one?" I asked, flipping the compact open and shut, open and shut.

"Everybo--don't do that," she slapped my hand down. "Everybody at camp will, soon. The Hephaestus cabin loves making these. And they work for talking to people through normal mirrors, too."

"Gross," I made a face. "What if someone's, like, going to the bathroom when you try to contact them?"

"Just use it when you _need_ it, Annabeth."

I pocketed the mirror and tried showing Thalia my borrowed copy of _The Lightning Thief_, which didn't impress her nearly as much as I thought it would. And when I tried reading it again, it took me four minutes to get the first page down. By the time I'd gotten to the part where it said, _My name is Percy Jackson. I'm twelve years old,_ I thought I was going to scream.

A laid-back guy's voice came over the PA system: "We'll be beginning our descent in a few minutes, folks. Looks like we're going to have some turbulent weather, so we do ask that we fasten your seatbelts just in case."

Well, in that case, screw the introduction. I flipped straight to the middle of the book and decided that I'd just figure out from context when it was talking about. My eyes skimmed past the large, intimidating pools of text swimming at the top of the page and zoomed to the bottom. The words weren't that bad, and I could read: _We shook hands. Luke ptatted Grover's head btewen his horns, then gaev a good-bye hug to Annabeth, who looked like she might pass out._

Annabeth. Wait. As in me. I was literally a part of the book the boy in the seat in front of me was reading, his favorite book. He's probably read about Percy and Grover and me a hundred times, and didn't even know who I was when he saw me. How could he? I was a fictional character to him.

And note to Percy-slash-Rick Riordan: I don't appreciate the description.

_Atfer Luke was gone, I told her, "You're hpeyrvtilang." "Am not." "You let him cpatrue the flag istnaed of you, didn't you?" "Oh...why do I want to go aynhewre with you, Percy?"_

I closed the book immediately. I didn't really know why, but after reading that, I was starting to feel sick. Maybe because I didn't like hearing about Luke again, and maybe because it was too strange to read about things I'd actually said and done.

Or maybe reading tiny text and being on a choppy flight wasn't the best combination ever.

I traced the cover illustration with a finger. They'd shown Percy as a kid, with the minotaur horn in one hand and Riptide in the other. I hoped he was okay, back at camp. No offense to Thalia, but I sort of wished he could be on this flight right now. At least Percy wouldn't be completely zoned out with his iPod turned up to maximum volume, like a certain Hunter was right now.

"Thanks," I said while I leaned to the seat in front of me, handing the boy his book. We were already landing, so I figured he'd want it back. "It looks really good."

He grinned and shook long brown bangs from his face."Yeah, best book of all time. There's even gonna be a movie."

"Imagine that."

"Yeah...I don't really like who they picked to play Annabeth, though. Did you get to the part about Annabeth yet?"

"Um, I didn't read that far," I said delicately.

"She's basically Percy's girlfriend," he told me, probably not noticing how my cheeks and ears were turning neon pink. "And she's supposed to be blond and sporty and stuff. Actually, _you_ look a lot like her."

"Really? Ha ha," I chuckled nervously, trying to slouch back in my seat as I stuffed my hair under the Boston Red Sox hat I'd brought along as a disguise. "Funny stuff."

_Percy's girlfriend. NOT._

"A _whole_ lot like her. I'm Christian, by the way," he beamed as everyone unbuckled their seatbelts and stood up. "What's your name again?"

I gulped. "Uh..."

But I was saved from having to tell Christian that I was, in fact, Annabeth Chase (yes, the book character, Percy Jackson's _not_-girlfriend, etcetera) by the flight attendent. It was kinda creepy, actually; it was like she popped out of nowhere.

"Sweetheart," she said in a silky voice, wrapping her arm around my chair and tossing her straight blond hair to the side. At first, I thought she was coming to offer help unloading baggage or something. Her embossed nametag read _Stheno_ under a pair of airplane wings. "Stheno". Maybe she was from Scandinavia?

She made a hissing noise, which was a little weird for a flight attendant. "Why did you think you could trick me like that, Annabeth? Our Master would be _furious_ if he found out I let you go."

I backed up in my chair at the start of the familiar monster-speech. Oh, no. "Thalia..." I said, tugging her sleeve.

"See, even _she_ thinks you look like Annabeth," Christian laughed in front of me. I wanted to tell him that unless he zipped his lips he was a prime target to become an in-flight snack for a Greek monster.

"But I won't let Master get angry," Stheno smiled, revealing her pointy teeth to be even worse than I remembered. Her blond hair was turning stringy--no, snake-like.

Holy Hera, _Stheno_. Of course! One of the three Gorgons, next to Medusa and...the other one.

"THALIA!" I cried, ducking around the skinny flight attendant and groping in my jeans pocket for my bronze knife. Wait. It wasn't in my pocket. I'd hidden it somewhere, trying to look less suspicious when getting through airport security.

One of Stheno's more unruly snakes snapped at me--maybe she'd forgotten to hairspray it this morning, I don't know. The rasping snakey sound was awful.

I ducked and rolled into the aisle, crawling on my hands and knees while searching my clothes for a knife. Jacket pocket--no. Back pockets--no. I got desperate enough to check underwear, but it wasn't there anyway.

"You see what I've become, sweetie?" Stheno hissed, her snakey-hair hissing along with her. All the plane passengers scattered and inched away from us; it probably looked like a catfight between a flight attendant and a teenage girl. "You see what a beautiful woman like me--"

"Oh, give it a _rest_," I said. "Medusa already gave us the beautiful woman speech!"

She made a hissy recoil noise. "Nice work, sweetheart. For your bad attitude, I'll make your death extra-painful!"

She lunged after me, crawling hands-and-knees on the floor behind me like the corpse girl from _The Ring_.

"DAMMIT, THALIA!" I screamed, kicking Stheno in the face without looking at her before scampering away. "IF YOU DON'T COME HELP ME RIGHT NOW, I'M GOING TO KICK YOUR IMMORTAL BUTT WHEN THIS IS ALL OVER!"

I tried to get up on my feet, but something poked my heel and made it hard to stand up. Wait. Wait just a second. I pulled off a Converse tennis shoe, and, of course, _that's_ where I'd put my knife.

"Not a terrorist," I assured the frightened-looking businessman next to me. "I sweaar!"

"Sheesh, Annabeth," Thalia's voice said somewhere behind Stheno's scary figure. "I try to listen to music for five minutes and you get attacked?"

"Just help kill her!" I shouted, pulling the knife out and, keeping my eyes tightly shut, aimed for the flight attendant's throat.

I heard a _stab, _then a _slikkkk_ noise. When I opened my eyes, Stheno's body was crumpled at the floor beneath us, her now-disfigured head a gooey mess on top.

"You stabbed, I sliced," Thalia informed me, peering over to see the head. "Wow. Disgusting."

Behind her, Christian--and everybody else on the plane--was staring at us like we were two teenage psychopaths. I felt pretty bad that the nice guy who'd loaned me The Book thought I was an insane murderer...but being arrested for assaulting an innocent flight attendant was worse than feeling bad.

"We've got to run," I said in one breath, pulling on my shoe and heading for the plane exit.

Thalia glanced at the head. "But it's a spoil of war. Don't you wanna...?"

"No, I don't wanna! Come on!"

We'd sprinted all the way through the gates and to the food court when I felt a buzzing in my jeans pocket.

"Ahhh!" I jumped, still on edge.

"It's the _mirror_," Thalia told me, much calmer than I was. She yanked it from my pocket and flipped it open. "Talk to me, Chiron."

Chiron's face actually _was_ in the mirror--sort of like video chat, except smaller. "Well, first things first," he said, looking slightly abashed. "I'd like to apologize for the mix-up regarding tickets."

I gave him a puzzled look over Thalia's shoudler. "What do you mean..."

"Uh, Annabeth?" Thalia said, pointing to a huge banner on our left. _Welcome to Los Angeles International Airport_, it read in large white letters.

"Aw, Chiron!" I whined. "You got us to Los Angeles? Really?"

"I apologize! Those airport websites are so very confusing," he explained, his voice warped and tinny coming through the little compact mirror.

Both of us sighed. "Well," I looked back at the gates. "I guess we'll just catch another flight to San Antonio. No harm done."

"That's the other thing," Chiron stopped me, grinning broadly. "It really isn't so bad, you see. Mr. Rye-ordan actually is on a tour in Boston right now, not San Antonio."

"Terrific. Where can we get tickets to Boston?" Thalia asked drily.

"I've got them for you already."

"Uh, that's what you said last--"

"No, no, this time I'm sure I've got it right!" Chiron turned from the mirror, and it looked like he was searching for something in his bag. "All right, close the mirror and open it quickly," he said. "This is a new feature I want to try."

Thalia looked at me skeptically, but snapped the mirror shut, then open again. Lying on the mirror's surface were two slightly crumpled white planet tickets.

"Isn't that charming?" Chiron said proudly. "I came up with the concept of sending small objects via mirror, you know."

"Convenient," I agreed, taking mine from the orange compact.

Well, yeah, it _seemed_ convenient, until we realized the plane for Boston was leaving in ten minutes. We had to be on the plane...five minutes ago.

It was in the middle of sprinting to our gate on the moving sidewalk that we spotted them.

"Wait!" I said suddenly, nearly knocking into Thalia. "Look at the girl with the sunglasses."

"Which..._one?_" Thalia grumbled, ticked about having her face smushed into my back.

"Long brown hair, wearing jeans and a baseball hat and gray boots," I said, pointing her face in the right direction. "You know who that is?!"

"No, and I don't care."

"_Alexandra Daddario_. The actress!"

She sighed and started to walk again. "Annabeth, every other female here is an actress. It's not a big deal."

"No, no, it is a big deal. She's playing me in the Lightning Thief movie!"

"You need to get over yourself," she said decidedly, pulling me along. "We've got a plane to catch."

I stood my ground. "It's not about me, it's about the movie. Come on, let's go meet her."

Thalia stopped, turned, and faced me with a face as stony as that of Artemis watching a romantic comedy. "Dude. This plane leaves in less than six minutes. If we're not _on it_, we're stuck in Los Angeles until gods know how long. Do you want to meet this Daddio person, or do you want to talk to the guy behind everything?"

I reluctantly followed her onto the plane, which barely let us on (but it's not like we were the last people on board; I think some teenager got on after us).

The flight to Boston was a lot more boring than the last flight, and just as long. We'd wasted half a day in airplane seats, and I was about to go nuts by twilight when we landed in Massachusetts. I couldn't help wondering what meeting Rick would be like, though. Would he be shocked, seeing that one of his "creations" was a living, breathing human being? Excited? Scared to death?

Or maybe, like I thought, he was actually an evil mastermind and was fully aware that me, Percy, Grover, Thalia, Chiron, and all the Greek gods were alive.

"Annabeth," Thalia's voiced called. I wasn't asleep, but I'd spaced out so much she had to conk me on the head to get me up. "Annabeth! We landed like two minutes ago, and you're still staring out the window."

I swatted her fist away. "Just...thinking."

"Yeah, well, quit thinking and start walking." She yanked me up by the arm and pulled me into the single-file line of people waiting to deplane.

"Glad this is over," I muttered. "If we need to fly somewhere else, I'm seriously thinking about getting a pegasus."

"Alex!" a guy's voice said behind me. "I tried to get a seat with you, but everywhere was full."

I turned around to see Percy standing next to me, his face looking incredibly relieved and kind of airsick. _What?!_ How on earth did he get here? I hoped he'd just come in from New York to Boston. Maybe Chiron gave him permission, maybe he drove. And was it just me, or was his shirt different?

"Percy!" I hissed, taking off my Red Sox hat and letting my hair tumble down. It was getting itchy, keeping the "disguise" on for so long. "What are you doing on a plane? Did Blackjack put you up to this? What's with the clothes and calling me Alex and--"

But while I was rambling on with questions, I hadn't noticed that, once I'd let my hair fall down, "Percy's" face had gone from relieved to horrified. It wasn't white from airsickness anymore; it was white from terror. And I was pretty sure it wasn't just because I had a bad case of hat-hair.

"You're not Percy," I said weakly, feeling everything click in my mind.

"And you're not Alex," the guy said with huge eyes.

"All right, Logan, I've heard you say my name like six times," a girl with long brown hair, jeans, a baseball cap, and boots said as she pushed through the line to us, pulling out her sunglasses and smiling. "But I guess if you're going to keep me chasing you onto planes, it makes sense that you'd....oh, holy crap," Alexandra Daddario stared at me in horror, dropping the sunglasses to the ground with a _clank_ noise that made me flinch. "Who _are_ you?"


	4. CLOSE IN: The School Visit

**A/N: I don't really have any inspiration for this. I just felt guilty for not updating for four months.**

**I'm actually slowly losing my long-time love for Percy Jackson…AND I DON'T KNOW WHY. :(**

**Also, I fractured my arm.**

**----**

There was a painfully long moment where we all just stood with our mouths gaping open like goldfish.

The guy I'd thought was Percy backed up nervously. "I think they're fans of the series or something," he muttered to Alexandra Daddario. "The blond one was calling me Percy."

"Yeah, but why would a fan of the series look like my _clone_?" she whispered back.

"Um," I decided to speak up with a brilliant remark. "Um, I'm only fourteen, so I don't think I could be your clone."

"And her hair's different," Thalia added.

I gave her a sarcastic look. "Thank you."

"Just a....weird coincidence...I guess," the actress said, not sounding entirely convinced. It's one thing for two people to look alike; it's something else entirely when two people look so much the same, even_ they _think they look the same. "Did you want to take pictures with Logan or something?"

Thalia looked puzzled. "Logan?"

"He's the one playing Percy," she said patiently, picking her sunglasses up from the floor. "The whole _Percy Jackson _cast, we had to come here to New York for some publicity stuff."

I laughed nervously. "Ah, New York City?"

"Yeah."

I tried to come up with a way to phrase this nicely, but eventually gave up. "We're sort of...in Boston."

Alexandra Daddario laughed. "That's probably your _next_ flight. It's easy to forget things when you're jet-lagged. But this is definitely New York. Renée called and gave me a ticket to this gate after she saw Logan getting on--"

"Renée said _what_?" Logan turned to his co-star.

"Gave me a ticket. After she saw you getting on."

"No, I heard you the first time!"" Logan cried. "What I mean is, I came here when I saw _you_ getting on, except you were with this other girl with black hair and--" he glanced at me and Thalia. "Oh."

A wave of guilt the size of a tsunami flooded over me when he uttered that "oh," and I couldn't get it to go away. Thalia, however, was apparently immune to human emotion, and didn't think twice before she looked at the two of them and shrugged.

"Yeah, well, gotta go, good luck with the movie!" she said in one breath, beginning to zip away as both actors gave her strange looks.

"Hey!" I got her by the collar, yanking her back. "Sheesh. Don't you think we're kind of responsible for landing them in Boston?"

"No. Now let's move."

"Look, _he_ followed me on here because I looked like this girl, and _she_ followed him. My fault. We can't just...leave them here without the other movie people."

"Oh, no," Alexandra sucked in a breath at my words. "Chris...Renée...they're gonna kill me."

"Us," Logan corrected her, pulling a phone from his back pocket. "They're gonna kill _us_. And Renée's gonna be a lot nicer to you 'cause you're a girl."

"Exactly!" I waved my hand toward them even though I had zero idea who "Chris" and "Renée" were. "We have to...you know, get them a ride to the city or something."

"They don't even know who we are," she said flatly.

"But Thalia..."

Logan, who had been busy texting, perked his head up from his phone. "Thalia? Hey, Alex, wasn't that the name of that tree in the movie?"

Thalia rolled her eyes as if to say, _see what I mean?_

I looked from her face to the actor's to the actress' and back again, trying furiously to decide. I hated hard decisions--hate, hate, hate.

"Come on," I said finally, stalking out of the plane. "All three of you. We'll get you to New York faster than you can go by car, train, or plane."

"What's the catch?" asked Logan slowly.

"You're following us for a while," I said, ignoring Thalia's dirty looks beside me. "And first, we have some business to do."

-----

Confession time: I sort of hoped they would just ditch me.

I mean, they're famous actors, and for all they knew, I was just another dorky 14-year-old who happened to bear a creepy resemblance to one of them. My plan was that, in all probability, they wouldn't want to hang around long enough to find Rick Riordan with us. They had barrels of cash; they could hire a private jet to New York if they wanted.

Not so.

Apparently, Percy and I were being portrayed by the weirdest, least Hollywoodish actors on the planet, because _neither _of them seemed to think about hiring a jet. In fact, we (us two half-bloods) had already scurried onto the last bus out of the airport when I turned around and, upon seeing Alexandra and Logan, flinched like Thalia'd given me one of her static shocks.

"_Jeez_!" I fell into one of the bus seats. "You're still here?"

"Well, yeah," Logan said shamelessly. "That was the deal: you'd get us to New York, we'd tag along for a while."

"Okay, stupid, there _is _no'deal'. They're, what, thirteen?" Alexandra Daddario told him before looking at us.

"Fourteen!" I cried at the same time Thalia said "_fifteen_...or something".

"You know what I mean. You guys are really sweet for doing this and all, but seriously, it's okay. I don't expect you to get us to NYC. We're just gonna have to be late."

"First off, I _will_ get you to the city," I said, a little peeved that she didn't think I could. "Also...if you didn't want us to help out, why are you following us?"

Alexandra looked stumped. "Curious, I guess," she admitted, peering at me curiously. "Just...your face. It's like looking in a mirror. A nine-years-younger mirror."

"Nine years--and to think she's still playing you in a movie," Thalia muttered so that only I could hear her. I gave her a pinch. "Ow!"

"So you're twenty-three?" I asked, blinking at Alexandra twice. "Wow. That's...old."

"Only six years older than seventeen," Logan said hopefully, sitting down next to me and patting a seat for her to sit in.

"Logan," she sighed, sitting down anyway. "You are such a creep."

He ignored her. "You two never told us your names," he said thoughtfully, looking at Thalia and me.

"Thalia," she said flatly, showing all the emotion of a large rock. "Which you already heard. And she's obviously Annab--"

"Anna," I interrupted, beaming and clapping Thalia on the back to stop her mid-sentence. "Anna Be…Bellhaven. And we know you're Logan Somebody, and you're Alexandra Daddario."

"Lerman," he said, offended. "How come you know her last name and not mine?"

She laughed in triumph. "I'm just more popular. And please, call me Alex. Everyone does."

Thalia, who clearly couldn't care less, pulled out a folded map of Boston she'd picked up in the airport. "Does anybody know where this school is? I forgot. What was it called, _Anna_?"

"Patrick F. Gavin Middle School," I told her, remembering where Chiron had said Rick Riordan would be.

"On Dorchester Street. Then that's where we're going," she said decisively.

It took some time getting to the school, all right, but I spent around 90% of it staring at Alex's face. "That's really, _really _creepy," I muttered while Thalia and Logan argued about something--music, I think. "I mean, we're not exactly alike, though."

"Other than the hair?" she laughed, studying me. "Hmm. What d'you think's different?"

"Your chin is less pointy, your eyebrows are skinnier, and you wear makeup," I said. "And fancy clothes."

"I'm not exactly a big star," she said honestly. "It's not like I get to wear designer stuff all the time. The trick's to look for stuff that fits well. Like, _you_, Anna, would look cute in something off-the-shoulder and an…author visit?"

At first, I thought she was talking about a shirt or something, like I should zip over to Macy's and buy a nice _author visit_ in black. But then the bus sputtered to a halt, and I noticed what she'd been talking about:

We'd pulled up to your average brick middle school, decorated here and there with dolphin mascots and tiles with paint handprints on them. The grass was just starting to turn green with springtime, and what caught my eye was in the middle of the lawn. _ATHOUR VISIT TDOAY! _a huge blue-and-yellow sign announced proudly, with annoyingly hard-to-read curly letters. _NYT BSTESLLEING ATHOUR RICK RIRORDAN!_

"We're getting off here!" I yelped, yanking Logan and Thalia--who were in the middle of a "Green Day is gay vs. Green Day rocks" debate--and Alex by the arms. We got off the bus _just_ before the doors whoosed shut.

Logan blinked at my tan hand on his pale arm, then at the school. "What the hell, you guys brought us here because you forgot your homework?"

"Uh…sure," I smiled while Thalia gave an enormous eye roll, even for her, behind Logan's back. "One assignment and then we'll get you on a pegas--plane!"

"Didn't you say you had a faster way to get to New York than a plane?"

"It's a _very_ fast plane," I said, leading the way to the side of the school and trying to walk quickly. "A sonic jet, practically."

It was reallyannoying, trying to find this Rick Riordan person. He wasn't in the cafeteria and he wasn't in the gym. Once we'd finally found our way to the auditorium, it was completely packed full of people, _and_ it sounded like someone was giving a speech, _and _Logan and Thalia were getting really impatient.

"Seriously," he said as I inconspicuously pushed open a door in what looked like the back of the auditorium. "What are you trying to do here?"

"None of your business," I whispered, motioning for them to follow me inside. All the background noise, the wind and traffic and stuff from outside, vanished as we entered the auditorium, and suddenly even my whisper seemed loud as the door loudly clicked shut behind us.

I was pretty sure we were in the wings of the stage, and here's why: it was dark, it was walled in by curtains on one side, and, despite the hundreds of kids we could see sitting in seats through a gap in the curtains, nobody else was back with us.

"Who're my favorite Greek gods?" a man's voice said from behind the curtain, all echoing like he was talking ino a microphone. "Mm. Probably Poseidon, then Athena. I mean, you can tell why I made the characters the way they were!"

I rolled my eyes as Logan whispered, "That sounds like Rick!"

"Duh, Logan," Alex said. "Can't you read? He's visiting this school today. It was on a sign outside."

"Shhhh!" he shushed her. "Let's listen."

His shushing was all in vain, though, because two seconds later, somebody ended up bumping into us with a loud _thump_.

"Whoa!" a too-familiar voice said, his hard-to-see figure stumbling back.

I turned away from the curtain in disbelief. "_Percy? _You're--you're supposed to be at camp!"

"_Really_ supposed to be," said Thalia. I could see her glare even in the dim backstage light.

"Blackjack gave me a ride," he whispered happily. "It's not _that_ far from camp, you know. Chiron told me what was going on And I beat you here."

Alex giggled. _Chiron, Percy, Blackjack. _Way to keep our cover, Seaweed Brain. "You sure you guys aren't just crazy Percy Jackson fans?"

"I swear, it's coincidental," I said. "Sorry, _Alex Daddario and Logan Lerman_, this is my friend who…yeah, happens to be named Percy," I looked at him pointedly, though it was kind of hard to tell in the darkness where he was.

"Wo-o-o-_ow!_" he said appreciatively. Totally oblivious to my hints. "_The _Logan Lerman, huh?"

"And Alex Daddario," added Alex, hurt.

Percy grinned stupidly, still completely stunned. "I can't believe you got the two most important actors of all time to meet up with us. How'd you manage it, Wise Girl?"

I never got the chance to explain the situation to Percy, though.

Here's why: still staring at Alex and Logan, he tried to lean back, real casual-like. This wouldn't have been a problem if he'd been standing in front of, you know, a wall. As it was, he was standing in front of a curtain, and he ended up stumbling backward.

_Onstage_.

"Crap!" I whispered, pouncing forward to peek beyond the curtain. The audience gave a collective gasp, not knowing exactly what was going on. Then one kid started enthusiastically applauding, and of course everybody else followed along. Even I could hear the whispers going around the room: _What's going on? Is he part of the speech? No, I think that's the guy who's playing Percy in the movie. Oh! Logan Lerman? Yeah, him._ _You sure? He looks a little different…_

"Come on, Percy," I said in a low, fierce voice as the applause dulled. "Do something!"

Percy blinked. "Um," he said brilliantly.

Rick looked as confused as I did, but unlike Percy, he'd decided to pretend like he totally knew what was going on. "So," he said with a nervous laugh, walking over to Percy and putting his arm around him. "Why don't you tell us your name?"

_Don't screw this up, Percy._

"Um, Percy Jackson?" he said, which the entire auditorium thought was hilarious. Laugh, laugh, laugh.

Alex and Logan gave Thalia and me with the strangest looks, but I just huffed and pretended not to see them. When Percy got off that stage, he was such dead meat.

"Exactly!" Rick said, laughing like everyone else in the theater. I wondered what he was really thinking. "Black hair, Camp Half-Blood shirt," he pointed to Percy as he talked, then glanced at his eyes. "Even green eyes…you're practically his twin!"

Percy smiled, confused. "Uh, sure, let's go with that."

Rick covered the microphone and turned Percy away from the crowd for a second, pretending he was fiddling with the mike's controls. But I was close enough to hear him whisper to Percy, "Um, did the school organize this or something?"

Percy glanced back at me for decision-making. I sighed, because this situation was so ridiculous, but gave him the thumbs-up. Honestly, there probably wasn't another way out of this situation.

"Yeah," he whispered back. "Just play along like I'm the guy from the book."

I probably could've relaxed a little bit right then…except I felt someone violently tapping my shoulder, and turned around to see Logan giving me an oh-my-gods-what-the-hell-is-going-on-you-crazy-child-who-dragged-me-here look.

"Anna," he said in a weak voice. "Okay, we've gotten over the fact that you look a lot like Alex. We've gotten over the fact that your weird friend is named after a tree from the Percy Jackson books."

"Hey!" Thalia stomped on his foot, which probably hurt, but he hardly noticed.

"And I can even get over the fact that your _other_ friend looks a lot like _me_," he continued, "but, um, why is he calling himself Percy Jackson? If this is a joke, it's seriously the worst one I've ever--"

"You owe us some answers," Alex agreed stubbornly. "Please?"

I was just about to spout some more half-baked lies, until I saw something long, thin, and plastic roll toward me on the ground: a pen. Just an ordinary, sixty-cent ballpoint pen that could've fallen out of a teacher's pocket.

Or Percy's.

_Oh my gods, _I thought as I snatched up the pen before it vaporized back into Percy's jeans. _Stupid, stupid, _stupid_ idea, Annabeth. No. Stop now. Don't do it._

"Alex, Logan, I need you to hold onto me somehow," I said, absolutely ignoring the smarter voices of reason in my head. "Grab my shoulder or whatever. Trust me. I'm not joking around, I'm trying to answer your question."

Logan opened his mouth to be sassy, but Alex elbowed him and latched her hand onto my shoulder. Soon Logan did the same.

"All right," I said in a wobbly voice, knowing the Mist wouldn't work on them anymore. "Concentrate very, very hard on what you're seeing."

Then I uncapped Riptide.


	5. CROSSFADE: Everybody Goes Bonkers

**A/N: And JUST when you'd forgotten about this story!**

**Happy New Year, everybody. **

You know the loud, awkward protesting when a guy pulls down his pants or something equally inappropriate in a crowd of people? You know how his friends start saying things like:

"_Whoa_, dude!"

"What the heck is that thing?"

"PUT IT AWAY! JUST PUT IT AWAY!"

So, I wasn't a guy and I wasn't pulling down my pants, but Alex and Logan's reactions for when Percy's pen changed into a deadly, sharp-edged sword were much the same. Sheesh. It wasn't like I'd been planning on slicing them to ribbons anytime soon. Thalia, who'd been watching the stage serenly this whole time, seemed to be the only normal one of us three.

I touched the cap to the tip of the sword, and the bronzey glow of the metal died as it shrunk back into a cheap ballpoint. "I'm going to make this as efficient as possible," I said, staring straight at them. "I'm not Anna Bellhaven. I'm Annabeth Chase, the girl Alex is playing in the movie. I am _not_ fictional, and neither is my friend Percy or Thalia or Camp Half-Blood, for that matter, and since you just saw Riptide, I'm hoping I won't have to explain a lot more than this."

Logan blinked at me. "Okay, seriously, how'd you do that trick with the sword?"

"Logan!" Alex cried. "Can you pull your head out of your ass for two seconds? I think she might possibly be telling the truth." She circled around me. "I read the first book…and you do look an _awful _lot like her…" she paused. "What color are your eyes?"

"Gray," I said, tipping forward so she could double-check in the darkness.

"Your beaded necklace?"

I held it forward, letting my dad's college ring swing a little.

"How about your Yankees hat?"

Good point. I rooted around in my jeans pocket until I found the crushed navy cap, and slipped it over my head. With a weird twinge in my fingertips and toes, the air around me shimmered and _poof_. Five-second invisibility.

This time, only Logan screamed. (Which, by the way, just revealed that he squealed a lot like a middle-school girl).

Alex whistled, impressed. "Wo-o-ow."

"So you're––" Logan whimpered, cowering against the auditorium curtains. "And he's––?"

"Yeah. Percy Jackson, famous son of Poseidon, yadda yadda yadda," I said, folding my arms. On the word _Poseidon_, thunder crashed noisily outside despite the fact that it was sunny and storm-free. "Come on. We've got to talk to this Riordan guy."

Alex grabbed my arm. "Not sure that's a good idea."

And at that moment, she was probably right. I wedged myself next to Thalia peeked through the velvet curtains again: Percy was busy dancing about the stage, answering audience members' questions as obnoxiously as possible.

"Have I ever had feelings for Thalia…" he repeated, pretending to be lost in thought. "Yeah, occasionally. Like, I've had the feeling I should douse her in gasoline and drop-kick her from the top of the Chrysler building."

Thalia's serene, almost bored glance barely wavered. "I'll kill him later," she said with a shrug.

"But what about Rick? We've _got_ to speak with him!" I wailed as quietly as possible. "We've got to––"

Only, just then, I bent over double in pain. It felt a bit like twenty flaming knives punching holes in my heart's left ventricle, only worse, and there wasn't any way to get rid of it.

Alex and Thalia were at my side in an instant. "You okay?" Alex asked, just as Thalia lifted up the arm I'd cemented to my side to check for gunshot wounds or something.

But before I could answer, Logan interrupted, rising up from the corner and pointing a shaking finger at me. "You deserved it," he whispered ominously. "You're supposed. To be. _Fictional_!"

"_Shut_ _up, Logan_!" we all shout-whispered at the same time.

I sighed as Percy answered some fan's question about whether he knew that "blue waffles," like the kind his mom made, was also the name of a rather nauseating disease.

The stabbing feeling in my chest had dulled, but not stopped. Still, it was enough for me to peel my arm away from under my ribcage––but once I did, I instantly regretted it.

My right hand had started to fade.

I mean, literally _fade_. The tips of my fingers had gone transparent, with the transparency spreading like gangrene to the rest of my hand. And you have no idea how disturbing that is unless it really happens to you––seriously, my heart dropped to somewhere near my small intestine. I immediately slapped my hand against the backstage wall in some insane attempt to snap the skin back to normal.

"Ouch," I muttered, yanking my hand back to my face. No see-through. Just skin.

Logan was giving me the strangest look. "I will never understand you book characters."

Just then, however, a loud groan from onstage made all four of us snap our heads toward the curtains. Percy––oh gods, poor Percy––had dropped to his knees mid-sentence, clutching at his side like he'd been shot.

But I knew he hadn't been shot. He was feeling the same pain I was. My eyes scanned his body wildly, hoping I wouldn't find what I was looking for––but there it was anyway. The edge of his shoulder has started to fade, the green of his t-shirt dissolving into thin air.

So of course I had to do something incredibly stupid to fix this.

"All right, that's all the time we have for questions today!" I shouted, grinning a maniac's smile as I strode onstage with a wave. I had no idea what sort of things Alex or Logan or Thalia were mouthing in protest behind me. "Thanks for listening! Don't forget to buy Mr. Riordan's books!"

About half of everyone started filing out; the other half was staring at each other, staring at Percy, or staring at me. I heard weird bits of conversation floating through the auditorium: _should we go? No, she's part of the show. It's supposed to be Annabeth, numbnuts. Haven't you read the books? No, it's…_

"Seriously," I said, my crazy grin fading. "Scram."

I must've looked a bit insane, because people started actually running toward the exits like we'd opened the gates of Tartarus.

It took only seconds for the whole room to clear, and only seconds more for Logan, Alex, and Thalia to dash out from behind the wings. Of course, when they did, Rick Riordan––a guy about my dad's age in a sports coat with carefully clipped hair in shades of black and gray––went from confused to bewildered.

"Logan and Alex?" He was blinking really fast, like maybe he could make us five irritating apparitions disappear if he tried hard enough. "Um, does somebody want to explain what's going on?" He glanced at Percy. "You did great, by the way. What's wrong with your stomach?"

I took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. "We've got a lot of questions." I whacked Percy's fading shoulder until it snapped back into green cotton. "And apparently, not a lot of time."

But Rick was cocking his head to the right, peering at me like you might peer at an amoeba or something. "Is this a costume? You look _remarkably_ like one of the characters from my books." He started poking at my blond curls.

"So I've been told," I said, swatting his hand away. Unfortunately, hands reminded me of my fingers only minutes before––fading, turning transparent at the tips––and a sudden need to fix this disaster washed over me.

Without warning, I yanked Rick––still eyeballing my gray eyes and camp necklace––forward by the shirt collar.

"_Listen_," I said through gritted teeth. My name is Annabeth Chase, and that's Percy Jackson, so who the hell are you?"

I could practically feel Thalia's eyeroll behind me. "Annabeth…"

Well, yes, I was going a bit crazy. She was right to eyeroll. But she also hadn't had her fingers disappear before her eyes a few minutes ago.

"We know you've been writing about us," I hissed, yanking my bronze knife from my jeans pocket and holding it to his throat. "Don't play stupid. We want answers. _What_ do you know about the Labyrinth, _where_ are you getting your information, and _why _are you betraying Camp Half-Blood?"

It was quite ridiculous, really. I kept jabbing my knife closer to his neck at the beginning of each question, and Rick's eyes had grown to roughly the size of tennis balls by this time.

But that still wasn't as ridiculous as Logan.

"Don't listen to her, Rick!" he cried, dashing forward so quickly that Alex barely had time to restrain him. "She's a nutcase! She's a fruitcake! She goes invisible and makes pens turn into samurai swords!"

Well, that wasn't true. Riptide obviously wasn't a samurai sword.

But I never got a chance to correct him.

Because just then, in a crackling _whoosh_ of spring air with the distinct scent of newly-bound library books and spilled blood, a statuesque young woman swirled into view in front of us.

She was beautiful and intensely frightening: she had a model's build, all six feet of her probably weighing about 120 pounds (if that much), and she'd clad her impossibly long, slender limbs in a rippling Greek _chiton_ of forest-green silk. A silver sash wrapped around her delicate waist, tied in an imposing knot studded with silver beads. She'd tucked a silver theater mask––one of those exaggerated sad faces, a tragedy mask––into the sash, and twisted her snow-white hair into two perfectly round buns atop her head, letting long, wavy white pigtails twisted with silver ribbon flow down from each bun.

But something about her seemed timeless––despite her white hair or ancient clothing, she could be a twentysomething. A _sad_ twentysomething. Her full lips were pale and turned downward in a perpetual frown, her slim white brows arching slightly upward as if she'd just seen somebody die. A silver wreath of ivy wrapped around her head a bit like a crown, a bit like a burial headdress.

"Melpomene," she sighed by way of introduction. "Muuuuse of traaaaagedy. And you three half-bloods are _reeeeeeallly_ messing up my plaaaans."


End file.
